


fault lines

by minhyukie (thelogicoftaste), thelogicoftaste



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: An Eclectic Mix of Friends, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Road Trips, Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26544700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelogicoftaste/pseuds/minhyukie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelogicoftaste/pseuds/thelogicoftaste
Summary: Jaebeom holds him steady. Of course he does.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Comments: 4
Kudos: 105





	1. no, i'm not impossible to touch

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: jjp, getting together at their late 20s, jaebeom smiling shyly, kath bloom's come here in the background: 'no, i'm not impossible to touch, i have never wanted you so much'
> 
> ♡
> 
> fault lines: fractures in the earth's crust where rocks on either side have slid past each other.

➴

On the Thursday that Yugyeom turns twenty-three, Jinyoung calls him with a few words of wisdom:

“Buy better alcohol and drink slower,” he says first, voice mellow and sweet with the stretch of a twelve-hour shift. “Keep around more band-aids than you think you need. Only buy food from the third row of the market display. And tell pretty girls named Chaeyoung that you like their tattoos.” 

“Ah, _hyung,”_ Yugyeom whines, a burst of sound overlaid on a susurrus synth track. Sitting on the passenger side of Jaebeom’s car, he squirms like he could melt into the darkness, teeth glinting. Gangbyeon highway’s papaya-coloured lights filter over his face like a rolodex. 

“Happy birthday, Yugyeom-ah,” Jinyoung says. “Be good. And tell your hyung-nim to pick me up from work tomorrow.”

“You tell him,” Yugyeom says, easy, still blushing. He twists his wrist so that the microphone at the edge of his cracked phone-screen faces Jaebeom. “We’re in the car.” 

For a split moment, there’s a suspension of sound. The slither of passing air over the car, rolling wheels on asphalt vibrating, the purl of mirror charms knocking together, and the low resonant bass drifting from the speakers. Levitated, as if suspended mid-act. 

“Hyung-nim,” Jinyoung says dutifully, deeper, heedless of Jaebeom’s rushed exhalation. “Pick me up from work tomorrow?” 

And Jaebeom says, “Of course,”; says, “When do you want me?” When he really means _where, how, however you want._ “I’ll be there.”

Jinyoung hums, a smile from across the city, suspended in tiny vibrations. “I’ll be waiting.”

✷

— — — — — — — — —

⚪️ yu_gyeom 12m 

The first picture is of a little animated stuffed monkey. It jiggles from side to side, a decorative party hat atop its head, cymbals strapped to each hand, clapping together in celebration. Above it is a glittering banner: _IT’S MY BIRTHDAY ! #23 ❤️🐣_

Then, the interior of Jaebeom’s mother’s yoghurt café. Yugyeom is taking the picture, tongue sticking out with a wink, his arm around his father on one side of the table. Jaebeom is on the other with his mother, tucking her under his chin. Between them all is a large coffee cake, with two numbered candles stuck in a thick layer of buttercream. 

The image passes: Yugyeom, as an infant; Yugyeom in a bright school uniform and spiky hair; Yugyeom aged eight, sulkily standing next to a puffy-faced teen Jaebeom, in the first picture they ever took as brothers. 

Next: Yugyeom, just past his first growth spurt, straddling a surfboard in warm Jeju-do waters, yelling at something off-screen. 

Next: Yugyeom on the steps of Jaebeom’s university, surrounded by Jaebeom’s friends, with Jaebeom just off-centre, laughing with Jinyoung. 

Next: A shadowy karaoke room, bodies in blurry motion, vacant eyes above blissed lips, Jinyoung’s mouth tucked close to Jaebeom’s ear in whisper. 

Next: A video with last year’s date stamped on in animated numbers in the corner, the muffled crunch of snow beneath heavy boots, and Yugyeom’s voice behind the camera, his gloved finger pointing out the teetering bodies atop the blunt-topped rocks of a mountainside: “My friends… are at every point.” 

Video-Jinyoung’s hands are stuffed in the pockets of his dark peacoat as he laughs, he stretches out one leg to bridge the gap between two rocks. With a hand wrapped around his arm, Jaebeom holds him steady. Of course he does. 

✷

And so, for Jaebeom, Friday doesn’t really start until he’s carefully rolling his car down Yeondaedongmun-gil just past six in the evening. 

Jinyoung is standing on the corner, one leg dangling off of the steps in front of Finn’s Place, frowning down at his phone. There’s a plastic bag looped around his wrist, and a large plastic packet smushed underneath his arm. It’s surprisingly vibrant, this little corner of Seodaemun, a stone’s throw from the hospital.

Jinyoung doesn’t look up until Jaebeom stops in front of him, headlights glancing off the orange hi-vis stripe of his paramedic’s jacket. But then he’s smiling, hand reaching towards the door handle before Jaebeom has enough mind to unlock it. 

He climbs in with a heavy sigh, leather boot catching awkwardly as he places it in the footwell. His hair is mussed with long-dried sweat, but his mouth is pink and flushed from sugar.

“What is it this time?” Jaebeom asks, peeling back into the middle of the road. 

“Persimmons,” Jinyoung says, smile distended by the lump in his cheek. He shoves the brightly coloured package of candied fruit on Jaebeom’s lap. “Want some?” 

Jaebeom reaches into it, but only when he slows to allow two nurses to cross the street, arm in arm. Sugar crystals, on the smooth glacé surface of the dried chunks, cling to his fingertips. There’s the faint taste of the fruit’s natural silkiness, but it’s overtaken by the flat, dry taste of candy. By the time the car is rolling again, Jinyoung has his remaining plastic bag carefully arranged between his knees as he contorts himself out of his jacket.

“Keep eating these and your teeth will fall out before you turn thirty,” Jaebeom says, crunching down. “Put on your seatbelt.” 

Jinyoung tuts, reaching back over—his fingertips skirt over Jaebeom’s trousers, warm and firm over his thighs—and Jaebeom twitches, foot pressing a touch too abruptly on the pedal. The car lurches, Jinyoung’s fingers close on the packet and he’s back in his seat. 

He’s laughing, fingers teasing open the plastic as he peers in. “You should drive more carefully.” 

“I drive just fine,” Jaebeom mutters. “You just—.” He catches himself.

Jinyoung’s dark eyes flicker to him. The attention unfurls iced heat against Jaebeom’s nape. 

“I... what?” 

Jaebeom doesn’t say. He tightens his grip on the car wheel, shifting back down a gear to manoeuvre between the parked cars, electric scooters, and cramped pedestrian walkways. 

After a short, heavy silence, Jinyoung glances away, settling more comfortably in the nest of his jacket. There’s a metallic tang of rustling plastic when he flicks open the packet with careless fingers. His lips purse, contemplation shading between his brows as he considers another persimmon. “How was your date, hyung?” 

“Date?” 

The pale-bricked exterior of Severance Hospital comes into view. Jaebeom turns the corner into the exit road, drifts past the pharmacy, slowing to catch a gap in the traffic in the main road. He signals; a steady tick fills up the car.

“Yes,” Jinyoung says, muffled around candy. “When two people like each other very much—”

And then Jaebeom remembers. Last Tuesday. A cloudy-white text box on his phone screen, the three characters of a pretty name, a wash of brown hair on a tiny pixelated icon. A friend of a friend. 

“There was no date,” he says, easing on the brake as he accelerates into the interior lane. “Seatbelt. Now.” 

Jinyoung doesn’t roll his eyes but it’s a close thing. He pulls the seatbelt over himself and clicks it into place; says, “Yes, _sir_ ,” with a sardonic tilt to his mouth. 

And yet, he’s surprisingly malleable after this. He rolls down the window and tilts his head so the breeze washes over him, and his hand creeps out, palm upturned to the delicate skin of his wrist, watching Seoul’s sunset hues drift in shadows over him. His fingers twitch to the beat of the song filling up the space of the car, eyelashes fluttering, a smile ghosting over red-bitten lips. 

They don’t speak again until Jaebeom is exiting the highway, turning down into the suburban roads. Jinyoung’s eyes are closed and he almost looks asleep. 

“Long day?” Jaebeom asks. 

Jinyoung breathes in deep, sighs out a hum. “Last call was a halmeoni who’d tripped over an upturned slab on the pavement. Looked worse than it was, but she was covered in blood.” He pauses, pushing his hair back from his face. “And then she barfed. But it got all on Junhyung sunbae and none on me.”

Jaebeom smirks, “So, a good day?” 

It’s worth it for the easy way Jinyoung laughs: hands clutching at his stomach, knee lifting up like he can’t help it. It’s good.

✷

They eat the jjampong Jinyoung brought from Finn’s Place in Jaebeom’s car in shifts. Jaebeom first, at the tiny counter of Jinyoung’s kitchen, carefully peeling each container from the plastic bag as Jinyoung showers, his weekend bag crumpled by the door. Then Jinyoung, in the passenger seat of Jaebeom’s car as they head out west, towards Bora’s place. 

He has his phone stuck between his shoulder and his cheek, speaking quietly. 

“Work ran late,” he’s saying, stirring his noodles in the gloopy, congealing sauce at the bottom of the paper container. The windows are open an inch on either side, creating a blustery wall of travelling sound that reduces comprehension to fragments of missed sentences: _he’s here;_ and _we’re on our way;_ and _is Yugyeom there? —_ but also, with unmissable warmth, _hyung’s always dependable;_ and _it’s luck, I’m lucky;_ and _I will, finally._

✷

“You will what?” Jaebeom asks, five minutes into the comfortable silence after the call. 

Comprehension is slow to form in Jinyoung’s eyes, even as Jaebeom watches it bloom in snatched glances: the road, Jinyoung; the traffic lights, Jinyoung; the downturn of a speed limit, Jinyoung. 

His eyes shift in the way it does when he’s furnishing the truth, or omitting it altogether. 

“Just something that I need to do,” he says, simply, evasively. “I forgot to, earlier.”

✷

⌜ 🔴 REC ⌟ 

“Is it recording?” That’s Bora. Her voice sounds distant, although she’s only tucked one row behind Jaebeom in Junmyeon’s rented car.

It’s dark and fuzzy in the interior. The rural roads outside of Seoul, where they’re hurtling towards their cabin in South Gyeongsang, are pitch black in the early hours of the morning. They’re trailing behind Sunyoung’s neat Genesis, and Yeeun’s ancient Range Rover. The moon hangs over them like a pendant, round and waxen, and illuminates just enough to make out Bambam and Chaeyoung in the back seat up ahead.

“It’s rolling,” Sunmi says, back in their own car. She adjusts the lens of her camera and leans forward, seatbelt forgotten. “Say hi.”

The camera pans around; captures Kwangsuk’s tired eyes between his mask and the beanie pulled low over his military buzz, Bora squished in next to him, twisting a thick braid of her hair over her shoulder. Yugyeom, in the row in front, leaning against the dark window, phone screen glowing a cool, marine blue. Junmyeon driving, one hand on the wheel, the other on the thermos in the console’s holder. Sehun, naturally, on the passenger side, body turned completely towards him even as his attention rests fully on the book he has folded over its spine. 

Sunmi leans over the middle seat, long hair pooling into the space between Yugyeom, on the right, and Jaebeom. 

“And the magpies,” she says, camera poised towards him. “Of course.” 

The lens gleams black and infinite, with the barest reflection of Jaebeom leaning back against the padded leather seat, and then Jinyoung, tucked into his side, cheek pillowed on his shoulder. Jaebeom would think him asleep, if not for the flutter of his lashes, the faintest impression against the goosebumps across his neck, and the fingers stroking over his. 

Jinyoung smells clean and warm, like the pomegranate soap his sisters buy for him each and every birthday. 

“Magpies?” Jaebeom echoes, pulling his hand away.

Jinyoung moves with him, lifting his head and sitting back against the car door. 

“No bridges here,” he says to Sunmi, eyes drifting from her to her camera. Then he smiles. Sticky. Sweet. “Just us.” 

⌜ 🔴 — ⌟ 

✷

The cabin, at the base of Seoraksan, looms large in the night. They trundle in with hushed whispers, clutching greasy paper bags from the overnight takeaway from their last rest stop. 

Doors are opened, beds claimed. Jaebeom collapses in the master bedroom—(‘Birthday boy privileges,’ Yugyeom had cawed, gleeful; ‘Hyung privileges,’ Jaebeom had replied, shoulder-checking him out of the way)—and he hears the groan of the bathroom door opening, footsteps padding over the corridor flooring. The smooth open of the master bedroom.

“Hyung,” Jinyoung says. The bed dips, one knee, then the other; Jaebeom can hear an ocean in the space between them. “You don’t mind, do you?” 

It feels too much like a trick question. 

“No.” 

“Good,” Jinyoung whispers, settling under the covers. Then he laughs, fingers briefly brushing over Jaebeom’s forearm, grip tight as he pulls himself closer. “Momo’s last in the bathroom.” 

The cabin has a few fewer beds than they need. Jinyoung’s short fingernails raze over the soft skin inside of Jaebeom’s forearm.

“I give it ten minutes before she gets here.”

Jaebeom moves to brush Jinyoung’s bangs out of his eyes. His fingertips drifting over his cheekbone, the rough stubbled curve of his jaw. He doesn’t linger, pulls away with warmth clinging to his skin. 

“I give it eight.”

✷

It takes seven, in the end.

The door opens with the judder of hesitation, Momo glances around the door, eyes wide in the dark. Like cats’ eyes caught in the gleaming glow of a midnight lantern.

“Oppa?”

“Yes,” Jaebeom sighs, but it’s without body. Soft and blustery with affection. He shuffles backwards, putting a slither of space between himself and Jinyoung. “Get in.” 

➵


	2. i have never wanted you so much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't, like, four months overdue or anything... (✿◠‿◠)
> 
> promptee, with all my heart, i hope you enjoy this ♡

➴

And so, for Jaebeom, the weekend only really begins as Jinyoung trundles down to the kitchen on Saturday. Mid-morning melts closer into the afternoon, and there’s an exodus of bodies from the floor above. The ceiling above him groans and aches, and then so do the stairs splitting the cabin in two, and then the narrow, shinty corridor leading to this old nook where he sits. 

Jinyoung’s smile, when he crosses the threshold, is small and warm; a delicacy beneath a shock of sleep rumpled hair and puffy cheeks. 

He collapses into the chair beside Jaebeom, hands wrapping around his readied blue mug and emanating contentment in steady, sweet pulses. 

✸

⌜ 🔴 REC  __ ⌟ 

“Ah, a bit—, get in a bit closer,” Sunmi tosses over one shoulder. She affixes the camera and its heavy lens atop a stack of yellowing cookbooks they’d found in one of the cupboards. Her fingers smooth over haphazardly-stuck stickers on the body of it, catching on the curled edges, tacky with stale glue. 

Then she bounds back over to them, crashes next to Yeeun on the chair at the very edge of the crowded table. She claps twice, heavy and thunderous, “Two—three—”

The table erupts into an off-beat  _ happy birthday  _ chorus _. _ Yugyeom sits close to his cake, fluffy choco meringue on an almond biscuit base, with glowing red cheeks. He cheers just as loud as they do before he blows his candles out. 

Jinyoung laughs, clapping him heavily on the back. He turns to Jaebeom after; the last lingering notes of minty toothpaste on his breath clouded over by coffee as he leans into his space, shoulder notched near Jaebeom’s chest, “He’s sweet.” 

Jaebeom adjusts his arm, so that it curls around the back of Jinyoung’s chair. His wrist is angled away, though his fingertips want nothing more than to tease at the hem of his short sleeves, soak up the warmth of the smooth warm skin beneath. 

“Yeah,” Jaebeom says, eyes on where Chaeyoung has slid down her chair, trying to pull back an elusive gift box from under the table with the tips of her yellow slippers. She laughs at whatever Momo is saying to her, blonde slips of hair falling over her throat to reveal a pair of inky-blue magpies swooping over her collarbones. Yugyeom peeks through his lashes over the table, enraptured. “Oblivious, though.”

This is a laugh meant to be shared, so Jabeom turns to Jinyoung, startling a little at the intensity of his gaze already on him, only a breath away. 

The camera captures the expanse of Jaebeom’s shoulders and the dark glint of Jinyoung’s eye, tucked away in the corner as they are. 

“Oblivious,” Jinyoung repeats, a beat off-kilter. “Right.” 

⌜ 🔴 — ⌟ 

✸

The day stretches both long and wide, pulling Jaebeom away from Jinyoung each time they find themselves in each other’s orbit. Their group splinters across the smooth-topped rocks littered over a lake. At lunch, they cram into the cafeteria of a traveller’s inn, piling onto three rickety tables pushed together. Jinyoung, two and a half tables away from Jaebeom, leans in close to Junmyeon, slipping candied persimmons between pink lips in between snatches of conversation. 

Back at the cabin, they catch each other on opposite ends of the corridor. Just as he begins making his way over though, Sunyoung whisks Jaebeom away to place crêpe-paper streamers in delicate, mint-coloured rivers across the patio. 

The heavy moon replaces dawdling sunlight. Jaebeom loses track of time somewhere between his second beer and third slice of jammy battenberg. It’s as he licks the remaining sugar from his fingertips, that Jinyoung’s hand closes around his wrist. 

Jinyoung drags him inside, past the kitchen nook, through the narrow, shinty corridor, and then up the stairs. It’s darker up here, vibrations from the bluetooth speakers outside burrowing into the polished laminate slats beneath their slippers. 

They make it to the master bedroom; Jaebeom pushes over the pile of his, Jinyoung’s, and Momo’s coats over to make space for them to sit. Jinyoung crosses over to the window. When he opens it, the wind that blows in from the north raises goosebumps on Jaebeom’s skin. 

The music from the speakers drifts up and in just as lazily, soft with distance. Jinyoung, long sleeves pushed up to his elbows, wanders back over to Jaebeom like the music itself carries him. Jaebeom’s heart's a heavy, rabbiting presence in his chest. 

“Beer?” he asks, profferring the can. 

He should probably look away, but there’s something so heady about the way Jinyoung’s fingers curl around Jaebeom’s fingers to guide the can closer, how the moonlight washes over his throat as he tilts his head back and drinks. 

With the back of his hand, Jinyoung wipes over his mouth. Then he flops over backwards, stretching out on top of the bed covers. It plunges his features into the stark shadows that clamber over the furniture. 

He sighs, clothes rustling. “I’m tired.” 

Jaebeom snorts, shaking the can just to hear the last dregs swirl against thin metal. He leans forward to place it on the bedside table. “Tired of what?” he says, teasing. Even to his own ears, the fondness within it sounds too heavy and sweet. “All you do is sit around and look pretty.” 

There’s an uneven beat. Jinyoung’s steady breaths. And then, “You think I look pretty?” 

Jaebeom inhales. His heart beats whippet fast, but that’s nothing on the balloon of hot air pressing up, up, up from his stomach and into his throat. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as he swallows around nothing. “Ye—yes.”

Jinyoung doesn’t reply. Only shifts a little so that his face inches into the pool of glimmering moonlight on the surface of the bed between them. His eyes track Jaebeom steadily, no expectation, no weight—just a look like he’s committing the shape of him to memory. 

From the open window, the sounds of a guitar picks its way over to them, before a dark voice soars, clear and high over the track. 

“I like this song,” Jaebeom says, for lack of anything else, he whispers it as the sound washes over the room. 

“Me too,” Jinyoung replies, matching the quietness. “From  _ Before Sunrise. _ Have you seen it?” 

“No.” 

Jinyoung’s fingers tap over the covers. “Come here,” he says to him, exhaling on a laugh, a small joke smothered in a smile. “Come here and I’ll tell you all about it.” 

So Jaebeom lays down beside him, legs bent awkwardly over the edge of the bed. Jinyoung’s features are more visible like this, and Jaebeom sees clearly: the shape of his eyes, the cut of his nose, the movement of his mouth. 

He lies there and Jinyoung tells him. He tells him, with both hands tucked palm to palm between his temple and soft woven cotton. 

“-and they sit,” he’s whispering, “they sit and they listen, and they don’t say anything at all.” 

“Nothing?”

Jinyoung hums. Eyes flitting over him. “They just look at each other.”

Jaebeom’s heart thunders. “Oh,” he says. “Just like this?” 

“Yeah.” The bed groans as Jinyoung shifts. His hands unravel, drift towards Jaebeom, knobbly fingers stopping just short of contact. He says, “Hyung. Hyung-nim,” a ghost of a smile and then, “Jaebeom-ah.” 

“Yes?”

Jinyoung’s mouth opens with the anticipation of words, but nothing falls out. The sharp trill of a harmonica layered beneath a sonorous voice pulses just beyond the reaches of full comprehension. 

Jaebeom could work over the sounds, slow and low in English, he could rearrange them in his mind into neat boxes of understanding, if only he concentrated, if only he wasn’t so distracted— 

Jinyoung wets his lips, swallows, says, “I really want to kiss you.”

Around hot air trapped in his throat, Jaebeom asks, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

Then Jinyoung is shifting, fingers curling in his shirt to pull him closer. His lips are smooth and hesitant, trembling as they pull away. He turns his head, the tip of his nose bumping up against Jaebeom’s, and he presses in closer again. 

Hooking a hand over Jinyoung’s thigh, he pulls him over him haphazardly. His slipper slips off and falls to the ground. They’re pressed together in a long line, the space between them a diminishing fault line, and Jaebeom can’t help but press him closer, arms curling around the warmth above him.

Jinyoung licks into his mouth carefully, tasting of light citrus beer and candied persimmons. He pushes cool fingertips into the hinge of Jabeom’s jaw, gently, opening him up for him and swallowing every noise that tumbles out his throat.

Jaebeom surges up as his lungs empty, mouth tingling, mind buzzing as they part. He can’t look away from the man draped over him. He sneaks his fingers beneath the hem of Jinyoung’s shirt, grazing over the smooth skin of his waist; delighting in the shiver that runs across Jinyoung’s spine.

Outside, harmonica trembles from the speakers as the song fades into the night. There’s a loud protest from someone, and Sehunie’s voice rings out,  _ Again! Again! _

Jinyoung’s eyes flicker over to Jaebeom, gaze shrouded in moonlight and intimacy that could swallow them whole.

“Again?” he asks Jaebeom, teeth glinting beneath a breathless laugh. But by the time the sounds of a guitar prickles over the air and a dark voice soars, Jinyoung’s mouth is warm and lovely over his. 

✸

After, when the door to the master bedroom has been barricaded against wandering friends, and they’re both tucked under the covers, Jinyoung reaches over Jaebeom to grab his handphone from the floor. 

Squinting against the brightness, Jaebeom watches as Jinyoung opens his KakaoTalk thread with Bora. 

The last message is from her, a gif sticker of Ryan the Lion waving two salmon-pink pompoms. 

_ ⇢ borabora_noona  _

⌜good luck, youngie!!⌟ 

⌜go get yo man 👯😙🤗💘✨💘✨💘⌟ 

Jinyoung settles in closer on Jaebeom’s chest, and taps the message box to write:

⌜i did it. finally.⌟ 

♡

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lovingly based on the way [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63XnP0F2deo&list=PLJgb7ieYTxGJ8dirNhrETFtDxhaFNWr5p&index=19&ab_channel=RachelNguyen) that's chic vlog makes me feel, and also [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQpYHiB0k6k) _before sunrise_ scene
> 
> chapter one was written to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842_hv_HNrs&ab_channel=COINVEVO) song, (malibu 1992 by COIN) and chapter two written to kath bloom's 'come here'.
> 
> thank you for reading! ✩


End file.
